On the contrary, the worst results are currently in the construction sector; both international and national indicators suggest that overcoming the negative tendencies in the development of labour productivity in this sector will require more flexible adaptation of construction enterprises to the demand for construction work. Slovakia achieves a relatively high level of labour productivity in the service sector, both in international comparison and intersectoral comparison within Slovakia. What is particularly important is that labour productivity in this sector is increasing along with the increase in employment. Still, an international comparison of a more detailed structure of the service sector shows that most dynamically developing services in modern economies (financial services, research, and the whole spectrum of business services) are less developed in Slovakia.

Their share in employment reaches only half of the level in developed economies. The insufficient development of this group of services clearly indicates that Slovakia lags behind developed economies in an area that creates the necessary background for increasing the success of the export sector in quality competition. The estimated relations between labour productivity in Slovakia and Austria in industry, as well as the manufacturing, are less favourable for Slovakia than for the Czech Republic and Hungary. Labour productivity in the Slovak manufacturing in 1999 reached around 40% of that in Austria. Increasing the industry's labour productivity will probably be very difficult, since it does not depend solely on the producers themselves, but also on the conditions in foreign markets. Due to the low level of wages and unit labour costs in the manufacturing (roughly a quarter of that in Austria) and a great excess of supply over demand in the labour market, producers are not motivated towards technological innovation. Moreover, with the continuous limited access to credit resources, producers are restricted by the extent of their own resources. In this respect, we see the improved financial situation in manufacturing enterprises in the past three years and the decline in the share of non-profitable enterprises in its output and employment as a positive signal. Changes in the structure of manufacturing production carried out during transformation indicate that it is gradually becoming more similar to the structure typical for developed EU countries. It differs from the structure in less developed EU countries, on the one hand, by the lower share of consumer goods and foodstuffs production and, on the other hand, by the considerably higher share of production of investment goods.

This means that the key problem of the Slovak manufacturing is no longer its structure at the level of sectors, but above all the slow introduction of new technology and knowledge intensive productions within individual sectors, without which faster increase in qualitative competitiveness is not possible. A number of positive trends can be seen in the developments in Slovakia's foreign trade in industrial goods. In the structure of its exports, the share of human capital intensive goods has risen to 46% (compared with 33% in 1994) and the share of raw material intensive goods has fallen to 23% (from 38% in 1994). Certain progress has been achieved in the relation between import and export unit values. While in 1994 only 23% of total exports of industrial goods was in the group of goods (at the SITC three digit level) with unit values higher in exports than in imports, in 2001 it was as much as 42%; in quality competition (higher unit values in exports than in imports, along with a positive trade balance) 17% was successful in 1994 and as much as 34% in 2001. The share of successful items in price competition (lower unit values in exports than in imports and a positive trade balance) decreased from 63% in 1994 to 36% in 2001. The position of Slovak enterprises is also gradually changing with respect to reached foreign trade prices in the EU market - the difference between export prices in the Slovak manufacturing and the EU average improved by about 10 percentage points between 1995 and 1999 and is considerably more favourable than in the Czech Republic and Poland.